WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:02.771
[bell dinging]
2
00:00:02.771 --> 00:00:04.180
[calm instrumental music]
3
00:00:04.180 --> 00:00:07.069
My name is Andrew and I live in Oakland.
4
00:00:07.069 --> 00:00:09.220
I woke up at around 10.
5
00:00:09.220 --> 00:00:11.140
Usually there's a good amount of light
6
00:00:11.140 --> 00:00:12.110
coming through my window,
7
00:00:12.110 --> 00:00:13.990
and there was no light coming through my window
8
00:00:13.990 --> 00:00:15.770
and I went to opened my front door
9
00:00:15.770 --> 00:00:18.030
and there it was, you know?
10
00:00:18.030 --> 00:00:19.891
Yeah, it was like nighttime.
11
00:00:19.891 --> 00:00:22.841
It was red. It was very red.
12
00:00:22.841 --> 00:00:26.424
[calm instrumental music]
13
00:00:29.500 --> 00:00:33.550 line:15%
It was just a huge new statement from nature
14
00:00:33.550 --> 00:00:36.070
that we ought to be paying attention.
15
00:00:36.070 --> 00:00:38.580
In September of 2020,
16
00:00:38.580 --> 00:00:41.780
we really had a horrifying coming together
17
00:00:41.780 --> 00:00:44.810
of different conditions that amplify wildfires,
18
00:00:44.810 --> 00:00:47.950
very unusual air circulation patterns
19
00:00:47.950 --> 00:00:49.930
and dramatic convergence
20
00:00:49.930 --> 00:00:51.823
over an area with millions of people.
21
00:00:53.450 --> 00:00:55.810
I live in the Mission in San Francisco.
22
00:00:55.810 --> 00:00:59.050
I remember waking up that day being extremely confused.
23
00:00:59.050 --> 00:01:02.410
Just being afraid, collectively afraid,
24
00:01:02.410 --> 00:01:03.350
with everyone else.
25
00:01:03.350 --> 00:01:04.293
That was like the end of the world.
26
00:01:04.293 --> 00:01:06.611
And it was this orange glow.
Super dark.
27
00:01:06.611 --> 00:01:09.120
[people chattering]
28
00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:11.270
Like, um, you know, Mars.
29
00:01:12.170 --> 00:01:15.590
For many people, the world was just a lot less comforting
30
00:01:15.590 --> 00:01:18.363
and hospitable than it had been the day before.
31
00:01:19.469 --> 00:01:21.970
[calm instrumental music]
32
00:01:21.970 --> 00:01:26.690
September of 2020 was a period of the largest wildfires
33
00:01:26.690 --> 00:01:29.790
the state of California has seen in recorded history.
34
00:01:29.790 --> 00:01:31.220
On September 9th,
35
00:01:31.220 --> 00:01:35.280
there were almost 500,000 acres ablaze in Oregon
36
00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:39.050
and tremendous amounts of smoke were being released.
37
00:01:39.050 --> 00:01:41.070
The quantity of smoke was very, very high
38
00:01:41.070 --> 00:01:43.727
then it was converging on the state.
39
00:01:43.727 --> 00:01:45.560
[dramatic instrumental music]
40
00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:48.330
Smoke wasn't right against the ground.
41
00:01:48.330 --> 00:01:51.300
It was up several thousand feet in the atmosphere
42
00:01:51.300 --> 00:01:55.770
where it was mixing with fog to create essentially a blanket
43
00:01:55.770 --> 00:01:58.160
that the sunlight had to come through.
44
00:01:58.160 --> 00:02:01.620
We had decent air quality close to the ground,
45
00:02:01.620 --> 00:02:05.780
but we're looking at a world with illumination
46
00:02:05.780 --> 00:02:07.990
that was coming through this smoke cloud above us,
47
00:02:07.990 --> 00:02:09.610
so dense that people noticed
48
00:02:09.610 --> 00:02:11.730
as the day September 9th went on
49
00:02:11.730 --> 00:02:14.090
that it got darker and darker during the day,
50
00:02:14.090 --> 00:02:16.316
rather than lighter and lighter.
51
00:02:16.316 --> 00:02:20.233
[dramatic instrumental music]
52
00:02:21.660 --> 00:02:25.170
And the reason the cloud is red is kind of like the reason
53
00:02:25.170 --> 00:02:26.780
that sunsets are red.
54
00:02:26.780 --> 00:02:30.090
White sunlight is all the colors of the rainbow.
55
00:02:30.090 --> 00:02:34.810
The light with shorter wavelengths, the blues, the greens,
56
00:02:34.810 --> 00:02:37.640
don't make it through a dense cloud like that.
57
00:02:37.640 --> 00:02:40.080
Only the light with the longest wavelengths,
58
00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:42.630
the oranges and the reds, make it through.
59
00:02:42.630 --> 00:02:44.680
And that's why the sky seemed like it was
60
00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:46.516
this orangy-red-y color.
61
00:02:46.516 --> 00:02:50.280
[dramatic instrumental music]
62
00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:53.740
Recognizing that it was like a signal
63
00:02:53.740 --> 00:02:56.230
that was putting a giant exclamation point
64
00:02:56.230 --> 00:03:00.795
around how serious and unusual our situation was.
65
00:03:00.795 --> 00:03:05.795
[dramatic instrumental music]
[images popping]
66
00:03:11.300 --> 00:03:13.180
The most recent studies indicate
67
00:03:13.180 --> 00:03:16.710
that in the last couple of decades,
68
00:03:16.710 --> 00:03:20.730
about half of the increase in wildfire activity
69
00:03:20.730 --> 00:03:22.920
is a direct result of the climate changes
70
00:03:22.920 --> 00:03:24.310
that have already occurred.
71
00:03:24.310 --> 00:03:25.913
In the last 30 years or so,
72
00:03:26.980 --> 00:03:30.890
climate change has basically doubled the amount of area
73
00:03:30.890 --> 00:03:34.083
that we lose in wildfires and in a typical year.
74
00:03:34.924 --> 00:03:35.890
Okay, where do we go?
75
00:03:35.890 --> 00:03:37.620
What climate change does
76
00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:42.620
is act very, very efficiently and in a targeted way
77
00:03:42.950 --> 00:03:46.610
to dry the most flammable components of a forest,
78
00:03:46.610 --> 00:03:48.500
the small twigs, the leaves.
79
00:03:48.500 --> 00:03:53.500
Just a few days of hot temperatures and dry winds can change
80
00:03:53.690 --> 00:03:55.780
these little twigs and leaves
81
00:03:55.780 --> 00:03:58.280
from maybe you could set them on fire
82
00:03:58.280 --> 00:04:00.850
to almost being explosive.
83
00:04:00.850 --> 00:04:03.050
[dramatic instrumental music]
84
00:04:03.050 --> 00:04:04.580
Oh, it's so hot.
85
00:04:04.580 --> 00:04:09.110
Climate change definitely causes more wildfires,
86
00:04:09.110 --> 00:04:11.260
more days when we have wildfires,
87
00:04:11.260 --> 00:04:13.233
more days when we have heavy smoke.
88
00:04:14.510 --> 00:04:16.410 line:15%
Where are my wife and kids?
89
00:04:17.660 --> 00:04:20.660
The challenges that people in San Francisco faced
90
00:04:20.660 --> 00:04:23.430
around Orange Day are nothing in comparison
91
00:04:23.430 --> 00:04:26.050
to what the people whose lives are at risk
92
00:04:26.050 --> 00:04:29.810
from rampaging, out-of-control wildfire are.
93
00:04:29.810 --> 00:04:31.620
Orange Day was more than anything else
94
00:04:31.620 --> 00:04:34.030
just a giant exclamation point
95
00:04:34.030 --> 00:04:37.810
about how serious the conditions are
96
00:04:37.810 --> 00:04:40.590
and how weird the situation was.
97
00:04:40.590 --> 00:04:43.090
[dramatic instrumental music]
98
00:04:43.090 --> 00:04:44.580
I feel like they are getting worse,
99
00:04:44.580 --> 00:04:46.670
and I feel like the fires are just gonna be
100
00:04:46.670 --> 00:04:48.390
a constant thing.
101
00:04:48.390 --> 00:04:49.420
It's hard not to have
102
00:04:49.420 --> 00:04:51.540
an apocalyptic consciousness.
103
00:04:51.540 --> 00:04:52.850
It just means that climate change
104
00:04:52.850 --> 00:04:56.110
is upon us, as we've been warned for so long.
105
00:04:56.110 --> 00:04:58.520
Seems to fit with the idea
106
00:04:58.520 --> 00:05:01.500
of the future being gloomier,
107
00:05:01.500 --> 00:05:04.490
and this is gonna become more ordinary.
108
00:05:04.490 --> 00:05:05.670
The reasons that this dark sky
109
00:05:05.670 --> 00:05:08.590
was these terrible fires that had caused so much damage
110
00:05:08.590 --> 00:05:11.420
and loss of life, and that every year it's getting worse
111
00:05:11.420 --> 00:05:13.268
due to climate change, so.
112
00:05:13.268 --> 00:05:17.185
[dramatic instrumental music]